


In The Spirit of Christmas...

by JRanger_Raven



Category: Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
Genre: Christmas, Coffee, Fluff, Other, crowley being a lil shit, graphic depictions of sarcasm, halt humiliation, will and gilan being lil shits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-11 00:17:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5606392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JRanger_Raven/pseuds/JRanger_Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You look like an idiot,” Halt said, blatantly. Crowley laughed. “I look great,” he replied. (Crowley is enjoying his time as a mall Santa, and Halt is fine just wandering around the mall while he waits for Crowley to be done. But all of a sudden Crowley gets food poisoning... who will fill in for him?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to when-there-is-a-will for coming up with this idea with me. :)

It was Christmas Eve, but everything was normal for Halt.

 

“You look like an idiot,” Halt said, blatantly.

Crowley laughed. “I look great,” he replied.

“I can’t believe people still do these things.” Halt narrowed his eyes at his friend’s costume. Crowley didn’t look too bad with a beard, even though it was doing its job of making him look decades older than he was. His clothes were padded so he could look bigger, and he was sitting on a throne-ish looking chair, which was what Halt was standing by.

“I like them,” Crowley said with a shrug. He adjusted his itchy beard a little, continuing, “I used to see mall Santa’s all the time as a kid. Just because the new generation is so different doesn’t mean we can’t keep some of the old traditions alive. I’ve always thought there was a certain… charm to Christmas, and to the whole Santa legend.”

“Yes, lying to your children is certainly a charming tradition,” Halt agreed.

“It’s not lying! It’s… oh, why am I even arguing with you?” Crowley sighed and set his chin in his palm. One elbow was leaning on the arm rest of his throne, and the other was across his lap. “Even if I presented the best argument in history, you wouldn’t budge.”

“Thank you,” Halt said. “I’ve been waiting for you to come to terms with that for all too long now.”

A young boy bounded up to the stairs below Crowley’s throne, and Crowley leaned off his arm and put on a bright, cheery face- which, Halt noticed, didn’t look much like acting despite the fact that this was an acting job.

Part of Halt was a little jealous that Crowley could get so genuinely excited over a single day. He could feel the joy of Christmas tunneling its way through his thick skin like a termite, but it never grew into a flame like it did in Crowley. Halt was simply touched by it. Nothing more. But he was content with that.

Looking around, Halt found he couldn’t find a single person frowning, and there were a lot of people in that mall. It was Christmas Eve, after all, what could you expect?

Crowley’s little break to talk to Halt was short lived. Within moments there were dozens and dozens of kids lined up to visit him.

“I’m not needed here, so I’ll go,” Halt said. He nodded to the gigantic crowd. “Good luck; try not to bruise your lap.”

“Why is it that you sound sarcastic even when you have no reason to?”

A tiny smile, more like a smirk, showed itself at the corners of Halt’s lips. Then he left.

 

Really, Halt just wanted to go home, watch a movie and drink coffee, but Crowley was his ride. He thought about stealing his car, but that was overly harsh to someone who was just having a little fun. He could just get coffee and browse for a few hours until they left.

 

The line for coffee was way too long. Halt sat (or stood?) through it, because dammit he wanted coffee, but he wasn’t happy about it.

Finally he got it and was sitting at a table outside the shop, drinking and checking his email when he felt a presence behind him. The back of his chair was almost touching a fake, small, white picket fence, and there were decorative bushes behind it. Somebody could definitely hide in there.

Of course, Halt didn’t do anything to indicate he was feeling the presence. He just focused his eyes on his phone and prepared himself for a “boo!”, or for someone to jump out in front of him and try to scare him, only to find that, once again, Halt could not be scared. Maybe someday they would stop trying… then again, that was a little too much to ask of Will and Gilan.

Yes, he knew exactly who was there. He didn’t even have to look.

He’d heard from Crowley that they would be shopping today; he had just hoped he didn’t have to run into them. In fact, he had planned to do everything in his power to make sure he didn’t.

Halt let out a long, internal sigh that could’ve lasted a century. Would they ever give up?

He was right about everything. Everything, except for how Will and Gilan were going to scare him. He predicted that they would yell “boo”, “gotcha” or jump out at him. Instead, he felt four hands grab his shoulders, not as gently as they probably had intended.

Halt’s brain involuntarily switched into self-defense mode.

There was no top on his coffee- there were so many people in line that the store ran out. So Halt twisted around, to face the two culprits and splashed the contents of the cup all over their faces.

Their shocked, coffee covered faces were priceless. Everything was awkward until the hotness started to set in.

“HAAAAAAAALT!!” Gilan and Will cried. It took a second for the pain to kick in, and then they were desperately wiping their faces, trying to get the liquid off.

Will tripped trying to run out of the bushes too fast, which caused Gilan to also fall behind him and knock them both all the way to the ground. Finally they picked themselves up and faced Halt. By that time most of the coffee was gone… but the memory wasn't.

“Why would you do that?” Will sobbed. “There’s a law against cruel and unusual punishment!”

Halt screwed up his face. “The eighth amendment?” he said.

“Yes!”

“Will, we live in England.”

Halt sighed, and stared down into his empty cup. It looked like sadness. “It wasn’t the best choice, anyway,” he muttered. “Now I don’t have any coffee…” It’d taken him at least   
ten minutes to stand in that line. Now he would have to go through that again…

This was the worst tragedy he had experienced in years. A dark cloud floated above him, and he started to feel a strong sense of regret for everything he had ever done.

Meanwhile, somebody was taking advantage of this loss. “Ha!” Gilan exclaimed.

But Halt wasn’t weak. “Don’t act like you’ve suddenly won,” he growled.

 

Halt stood up. There was a trashcan nearby, and he tossed his cup in there, but kept walking and didn’t come back to the table. Nevertheless, Will and Gilan ran after him.

“Where’re you going?” Will asked. “Christmas shopping?”

“Oh, yes!” said Gilan. “Did you buy presents for us?”

“Yes, I did already,” Halt replied curtly.

“That’s so sweet. I can’t wait to see what they are.”

“Oh!” said Will. “Did you see Crowley yet?”

Halt stopped walking when they approached a fork in the road, and turned around to face them. It didn’t sound like they would be going any time soon. “Yes, as a matter of fact I did,” he said.

“He can really pull off that Santa look,” said Will. “We were going to get in line, but it was huge and we had to shop, so we decided to go back later.”

“You’re shopping?” Halt asked. “That’s rather last minute.” Gilan chuckled. He didn’t deny that for a second, and neither did Will. “But I don’t see any bags…” Halt lowered his gaze down to their hands.

Realization hit them over the heads. Gilan and Will exchanged equally terrified looks, and they took off running in the direction they had come from. Halt thought he was just about as done with them as he could get, so he decided to bid them farewell.

“I’ll see you later, then,” he called. A sigh was clear in his voice.

 

Two hours later, Halt happened to want to visit a store on the other side of the mall, and that store just happened to force him to pass through where Crowley was stationed. He told himself that if he pulled his hood up, he could sneak past him without being seen. Crowley wouldn’t hesitate to call him out if he saw him.

Halt was sure it was working perfectly, because he was halfway across the floor and nothing had happened, until he realized that nothing had happened because something was wrong. There was no line he had to stay away from. When he took a risk and glanced over his shoulder, he found that there was no Santa sitting on the throne.

Crowley didn’t get off until six o’clock, and it was still two hours away from then. Halt doubted, with his dedication, that he was taking a water break. This wasn’t right.

He could remember the back room where Crowley had gotten set up with all his equipment, so he found that door and snuck back in. Getting caught didn’t even register as a possibility in his mind.

“Crowley?” he called, looking around the room. There was a table in the middle, surrounded by lockers and cabinets probably storing costumes and the like.

Crowley heard him. He emerged from a small door on Halt’s left: the bathroom. He was trying his best not to walk into the wall or fall over himself, like he was so dangerously close to doing. “Oh, heey, Halt,” he said. “You’re not supposed to be back here.” He couldn’t be one bit serious while he was saying it.

“You’re supposed to be acting Santa out there,” he said. “But you’re not.” Halt stepped closer. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Y-Yeah, I’m fine,” Crowley said. “Why do you ask?” Despite his best efforts to act normal, his face was devoid of color. Halt put his hand on Crowley’s forehead, brushing under his short, red bangs and felt it burning.

“Will you ever stop lying to me?” Halt sighed.

Then a new presence entered the scene from behind Halt. The new man yelled: “H-Hey, you’re not supposed to be here! This is for private access only!”

Halt turned around. The man was in a business suit… probably the manager of the mall Santa organization or something. “It wasn’t locked,” he said.

For a half moment the stranger looked confused. Evidentially it should’ve been locked, and that was a small error, but he moved on without acknowledging anything. “There was a sign on the door that said “employees only”! It doesn’t have to be locked to let people know that they shouldn’t be back here.” He pointed out the door and ordered, “Now leave.”

“Was there a sign?” Halt asked himself. He couldn’t recall anything like that.

“Yes!”

“It doesn’t matter, Mr. Carter,” Crowley said. “He’s my friend, and he was just concerned because I wasn’t at my post.”

“Yeah, there’re more important things to worry about, like Crowley’s health,” said Halt.

Mr. Carter touched his own hand to Crowley to see, and only then did he start to notice the way Crowley was swaying on his feet, or trying to hide the subtle exhaustion in his eyes. He couldn’t hide it anymore. The manager nodded, and backed away. “You’re sick,” he decided.

“No matter. I have to get out there… my shift’s not over yet. I can fake it.”

“If I can tell, so will they.”

Crowley always complained about how stubborn Halt was. It had happened earlier that day, when he tried to convince Halt that dressing up as a mall Santa wasn’t stupid, and was only met with the same conclusion that it would be easier to move a three story building than win an argument with Halt. The flipside was, when Crowley got passionate, he could be just as, if not a thousand times more stubborn than Halt. And if Crowley was passionate about anything, it was Christmas.

“With all due respect, sir,” Crowley said, “there’s still no one to take my place. The next guy won’t show up for two more hours, so who will fill in for me if I’m gone?”

Then he got that sparkle in his eye… the sparkle was equivalent to a light bulb going off in his head.

Yes, Crowley was very stubborn when he had strong feelings towards something. But there was one thing that could move him, and that was a good argument that could direct his passion somewhere else he wholeheartedly agreed with. In this case, he really wanted to be a mall Santa, but he would willingly give up that chance to see someone even more entertaining in his place. It accomplished his two goals in life: to do the right thing (cheering up kids), and to be entertained while doing it.

A big grin spread out on his face. “I changed my mind. I do have someone who could fill in for me.”

And at that moment, Halt realized with horror what his friend was thinking. He wished he had just walked home.


	2. Part 2

Arguing with Crowley was really pointless. Usually Crowley was on the other end of that stick, the one trying to push the other into or out of something they didn’t want to do… and it felt good to have the leverage this time. He knew, in his heart, Halt would fill in for him, and deep down Halt did too.

It was pretty much decided from the second Crowley suggested the idea. So that’s why, after a minute of arguing and fighting it, Halt finally slipped on the Santa costume that the manager was pushing towards him. He tried to hide his real, dark beard under the fake white one the best he could.

Actually, he looked very… charming. Crowley showed him his reflection in a nearby mirror so Halt could see just how handsome he looked, but Halt was stubborn and refused to “lose the small amount of dignity he had left”.

“How do I do this, then?” Halt asked. Crowley and Mr. Carter were ushering him out the door. They had taken enough time for themselves already; they had to get somebody back out there quick.

“You have to get into character,” Crowley said. “Imagine yourself as… the personification of Christmas.”

“I didn’t know it was that easy. I guess I must’ve been overthinking it.”

Crowley knew he was being sarcastic, but he continued undeterred, “At some point you’ll get into it, and it won’t be so hard anymore. You know the basic lines: ‘ho, ho, ho’, ‘have you been a good boy this Christmas?’, ‘now, tell me what you want for Christmas’, and so on.”

“Just hearing my lines makes me dread this more.”

“Don’t think about it then!” Crowley put his hands on Halt’s shoulders, and began to push him out into the open of the mall. “You’ll be great, Santa!”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Remember the ho-ho-ho!” Mr. Carter opened the door for Crowley, and with one final push, he was able to force Halt out the door and into the open.

Halt turned back to make another attempt at an escape, but Crowley was quick in slamming the door shut before Halt could even get his head around.

And now people were staring. And gasping. And talking.

“It’s Santa!” cried a kid.

“Santaaa!”

It was too late now.

 

The new Santa Claus made his way over to the throne. He was trudging like there were shackles around his wrists and ankles and he was being carried into prison, but at the same time he wanted to hide his unwillingness best he could from anybody else. It made for a very strange, unclear demeanor. He was sending a hundred different mixed messages.

He really didn’t know what he was going to do about this.

After Halt had turned his back, Crowley and the manager opened the door just a crack and watched as much of the scene play out as they could, before somebody noticed them.

Halt liked the sitting-on-the-throne part of it. But the glory of it was taken away by the extensive line of children waiting to see him. That was overwhelming. Halt wondered how Crowley handled it…

The first kid in line was staring at him with wide eyes, like he had spent the last decade looking forward to meeting him. Halt made direct eye contact with him for a solid five seconds, but the kid just stared. Grinning. Eyes sparkling. Waiting.

Halt made a stiff motion towards him. “Well, come on, then,” he said.

The kid bounded forward. Only after Halt had said that did he realize the mistake in his tone. It was just so natural to come off unfriendly…

Jolly, he reminded himself. Think candy. Happiness. Be like an older, wiser… smarter version of Will. Gilan was too impulsive to be Santa… Will was a better example.

The little kid walked and sat down on Halt’s knee with a solid decidedness. It didn't hurt. Halt was strong enough to handle an extra weight on his knee, but it was a weird feeling.

The kid beamed up at Halt like they were the best of friends. In the kid’s mind, they were.

“So…” Halt said, feeling a little awkward, “what’s your name… kid?”

“Henry! What’s yours?”

What’s yours? Halt thought. What kind of question is that?

“W-Why, I’m Saint Nick!” Halt exclaimed. He forced a painful, half smile half grimace onto his face. “H-Ho, ho ho!”

Henry giggled. “I knoow! I was just testing you!” He reached up and bopped Halt on the nose.

Halt. Halt had been… bopped on the nose. The playful gesture was destroying everything Halt prided himself on: solemnity, intelligence, dignity… He wanted nothing more than to throw the kid off his lap and walk away, but he couldn’t. Something was holding him back… it could have been his own morality. Then again, it could have been the stare Crowley was giving him from across the room.

As soon as Halt turned his head towards him, Crowley jumped in fright and disappeared again behind the closed door. It didn’t matter if they were so far away. Crowley could feel a terrifying aura radiating from Halt’s eyes, whether he was a mile away or an inch. Another thing Halt prided himself on. He could clear a room with that stare.

Halt returned to the kid.

“So, Henry… what do you want for Christmas?” he asked.

“Oh, I want a lot of things!” Henry exclaimed. “I waaant a dog, a phone, a spaceship, a million dollars…”

“That’s a long list… Pick a top two?”

Henry smiled. “Hmmm… a dog, and a phone.”

“A dog over a spaceship, hm? Well,” Halt thought out loud, “why not a million dollars? If you get a million dollars, you can get all of those things, and more. You’ll be hitting four birds with one stone.” Why am I helping him? Halt asked himself.

Henry gasped. “Yeah! You’re right! Then I want a million dollars!”

What have I done? A smile snuck itself out of Halt for a split second- but it promptly disappeared when he looked over and met the stare of a very, plainly discontented mother. A wave of guilt enveloped Halt and wouldn’t let him go until Henry went on his way and he moved on to another person.

But he started to get the hang of it after that.

The conversations between Halt and the kids were shorter; cut to “what’s your name?” and then “what would you like for Christmas?”. Halfway through his shift, Halt was still going at it, hiding his misery considerably well… but disaster wasn’t going to let him go just yet.

An hour in he spotted Will and Gilan approaching the line. They came from the hallway facing his throne, and even though they were far away, Halt knew who they were.

They didn’t show any times of stopping. It was only a matter of time before they got close enough to see Halt and recognized him.

The kid Halt was visiting with hopped off his lap, and that gave him just a second or two to think about what he was going to do. That was more than enough for someone with Halt’s mind.

Well, what could he do but hide? Maybe when they got close enough to see him, he could adjust himself a little on the chair and turn enough away from them.

Unfortunately for him, Gilan and Will had other plans.

Instead of walking right past Halt’s chair and giving him a chance to hide his face from them, they got in line and patiently waited their turn.

Halt vaguely remembered them mentioning a visit to Crowley, but he didn't think that they would be getting in line. What were they thinking?

They were anything but invisible. People were staring and wondering why two nearly grown men were waiting in line, towering like skyscrapers over all the other kids, ages five and six. They stuck out like sore thumbs. Halt wondered if they even knew.

You idiots, Halt thought. It was mostly for the sake of his pride that he wanted them out. He could care less whether they embarrassed themselves or not.

Crowley wasn't looking. If he were, he may have found a way to take Will and Gilan out of the line before they found out Halt was the Santa. Then again, maybe not.

What could he do? Was there anything Halt could do?

He tried to hide his uneasiness from seeping into his voice when he talked to the kids. Alerting anyone would just make the situation worse.

But before he knew it, Will and Gilan were nearing the front of the line.

They’ll never let this go, Halt thought, as he sent the next kid off to her parents. They’ll laugh about this until the end of their lives… It was comforting to know that that probably wouldn't be too long. I should just pretend I'm not ashamed. They’ll shut up if I act it just right…

“Hey, you were behind me!” Will said.

“You weren't moving.” Gilan shrugged and crossed his arms. “Snooze and you loose, Will.”

“Don't be such a little kid. Whatever,” Will rolled his eyes, “it doesn't matter who goes first.”

Both of you are acting younger than most of the six year olds here, Halt thought. He scolded them as if he were talking out loud, even though he knew they couldn't hear him. Please stop being so embarrassing.

Gilan did end up going first, and Will didn’t seem to mind.

Gilan walked up to Halt’s chair, and sat on his lap like he was young again. “Hello, Santa,” Gilan greeted him.

“Hello… son,” Halt said. He spoke a pitch lower than usual. “And what’s your name?”

“Gilan.”

“Gilan? Ho, ho, ho, what a nice name.”

Gilan flashed his famous, viper-like grin. Halt’s hat was down a little on purpose, to hide himself as much as possible. But Gilan was staring right at him, and Halt felt like his life was on the line. Gilan was always smiling like he knew something everybody else didn’t. It was hard to know whether that know-it-all-look was specific to the situation, or just Gilan being Gilan. If the latter was true, maybe he didn’t have to play it cool after all. Gilan seemed to be buying it.

So Halt overdid the jolly-candy-man act. He deepened his voice. He sat in a way that hinted he was bigger than he was. This was worth forgetting about how much he hated it for a while.

“What would you like for Christmas?” Halt forced a smile again and relaxed in his seat.

“Oh, I don’t know…” Gilan wondered, out loud. “Probably just…… money.”

Of course.

“Then again,” Gilan lowered his voice suddenly and leaned in, “witnessing this is a pretty good present in itself… Halt.”

He’d been found out.

Halt could see his life flash by in the half second that Gilan spent waiting for a response. “Did Crowley ask you to fill in for him?” he whispered. “I’m gonna have to thank him. You look very cute.”

“If you call me that again, I’m going to beat your face with the coal you’re getting in your stocking,” he hissed.

Gilan giggled quietly. “You’re making Santa-related threats,” he said, barely containing his laughter. “You’ve really gotten into character, haven’t you?” he teased.

Gilan was intimidated by how furiously Halt was looking at him. Any other situation and he would shut up, because Halt’s glare could melt a steel beam… but he couldn’t do anything. They were in public, not to mention Halt was supposed to be playing Santa. So Gilan was in the safe zone. He ignored it.

“Well, thank youu, Santa!” Gilan hopped off Halt’s lap, making sure to overdo the giddy act, knowing Halt couldn’t do a thing to stop it. “I love you!”

GILAN, he thought, screaming in his head.

“I-I love you too, son,” Halt stammered. He forced a friendly laugh.

Gilan waved and left the pedestal Halt’s chair was sitting on, but he still stayed a few yards away because Will was next.

Will was definitely more nervous than Gilan had been. But he got up anyway, and sat on Halt’s lap gently with a gentle but excited smile.

“Hi, Santa,” he said.

“Hello,” smiled Halt. “And what’s your name?”

Will completely, verbally shut down, for a solid three seconds. A three seconds that felt a lot longer than it was. He wasn’t talking, because he was obviously focusing on something very important… His and Halt’s eyes locked and he kept thinking.

Then he burst into laughter.

At least Gilan had the decency to fake it for a while! Halt thought to himself. “Will,” he hissed, “don’t laugh.”

“B-But…” Will said, nearly sobbing, “look at yourself. You look great.”

“I’ll hurt you,” he whispered.

“You’re a mean Santa.” Will took a deep, louder breath, then continued, “Anyway, I don’t want too much. A new jacket, a book or two… money… a framed picture of this moment to hang on my wall…”

“O-Of course, my boy. I’ll make it happen!”

“Oh, and Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you too, Will.”

Will knew he couldn’t resist the last nail in his coffin. He hopped down from Halt’s lap and before he could stop himself, he cooed, “I love youuu!”

May God have mercy on me, he prayed. Halt was thinking the same thing, but for a different reason.

“I love you, too,” Halt replied, pushing a large grin onto his face again.

Will and Gilan looked at each other. They hardly lasted a second before they broke into hysterical laughter. They waved to Halt, then went on to laugh about it and live out the last hour of their lives.

Across the room, Crowley could see everything playing out better than he could’ve ever imagined. The color of Halt’s cheeks, he noticed, was remarkably close to the color of his hat.

It didn’t take long for Halt to spot him, and Crowley ducked out of sight again. Was he watching that? Halt wondered.

He sat back in his chair. This played out worse than he could’ve ever imagined.


End file.
